Labor Council’s “Middle Class Taxpayer Association”

A colleague sent me a link today to an event posted on Facebook by a group calling itself the “Middle Class Taxpayers Association.” I thought I was acquainted with all the tax activists groups in San Diego and this was a new one on me, so I checked it out with interest.

What a joke. If ever a group assembled under a more inaccurate name, I’d be interested to see it. The “Middle Class Taxpayers Association” isn’t a new voice for responsible stewardship of our tax dollars. It’s a front group shilling for the San Diego Labor Council. The Labor Council doesn’t even try to hide its involvement. It seems silly to use this name, but I suppose there are people or news media who might confuse it with a real taxpayers advocacy group.

The mission statement of the group from its Facebook page says: “On tax day, millions of middle class Americans will pay their taxes while corporations aren’t paying their fair share. It’s time for a taxpayers association that cares about protecting actual taxpayers rather than corporate interests.”

Let’s ignore the fact that California ranks as one of the most expensive states when it comes to business taxes, and reflect that corporations don’t pay taxes — people pay taxes. Corporations fund their tax obligations by reducing their operational costs or increasing prices – often this means higher retail prices or moving jobs and business away from expensive states like California to less costly states or even out of the United States entirely.

Corporate taxes mask the real costs of government, just like this bogus advocacy group masks the real agenda of this organization. Its only “agenda” is to guarantee a revenue stream to make sure the unaffordable, unsustainable, bloated pension benefits keep rolling out for all of those public labor union members. Never mind that the real unfairness suffered by middle class taxpayers are dwindling hours at libraries and parks and unfilled potholes, things they paid for and aren’t getting because their money is going to pension payouts.

How does the “Middle Class Taxpayers Association” define the so-called “middle class?” Does it include the 488 City of San Diego employees currently making more than $100,000 a year in pension benefits? How about all the employees who got million-dollar plus lump-sum payouts? See the annual report on pension payouts by the City of San Diego Councilmember Carl DeMaio posted earlier on Rostra. Who knows how many others are working in a second career, double or even triple dipping. This hardly qualifies as “middle class” to most of us.

This Association would shout you down if you suggested that these well-off retired union members actually pay their fair share of health care benefits to protect actual taxpayers, for example. Fairness is a slippery thing.

We need to find a more descriptive name for this group. How about “Socialists Creating Radically Extreme Wealth That Hurts Earnest Taxpayers” – “SCREW THE Taxpayers” for short.